Getting cash out abroad

Three separate charges can apply to one withdrawal, and two of them are avoidable.

The three charges

• Your bank's fee. Often a flat amount plus a percentage. Fixed by your choice of card, not by which machine you use.
• The operator's fee. Charged by whoever owns the machine, usually disclosed on screen before you confirm. Varies a lot between machines a hundred metres apart.
• The conversion markup. If you accept the machine's offer to bill you in your home currency, the operator sets the rate. This is dynamic currency conversion and it is the expensive one.

Keeping all three down

1. Use a card with no foreign transaction or overseas ATM fee. This removes the first charge entirely.
2. Prefer machines attached to real banks over standalone machines in tourist areas, hotels or convenience stores.
3. Withdraw a larger amount less often, where the fee is flat.
4. Always decline the "convert to your currency" offer. Choose to be charged in the local currency.
5. Read the confirmation screen. The operator fee is disclosed there, and you can still cancel.

Small practical things

• Daily limits are often lower abroad than at home, which matters if you were planning one big withdrawal.
• Machines dispense large notes, which small vendors may not be able to change. Buying something modest at a supermarket is the usual fix.
• Take the card back. Machines that return the card after the cash cause more lost cards than anything else in travel.
• Some countries' machines charge even fee-free cards. The operator fee is theirs to set, and no card fixes that.

Work out what to withdraw before you get to the machine — the cheat sheet for the local currency turns "how much is 5,000 of these?" into a single division you can do in the queue.